Author: Natalie Dillon

Blackbelly rosefish have been kept alive under conditions that resemble the deep Atlantic in a lab at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School, a research facility situated along the edge of Biscayne Bay, where the water changes from green to deep blue within a few miles. 6 degrees Celsius is cold water. elevated pressure. Almost dark. The fish, which were extracted from depths of 350 to 430 meters, appear unremarkable. Spiny, reddish, and visually unremarkable. However, what scientists discovered within them is subtly changing the way ocean chemists view the planet’s carbon budget. Carbonate minerals are expelled from the fish’s…

Approximately 4.5 million square kilometers of the Pacific seafloor, built up over millions of years into one of the planet’s more geologically rich oceanic regions, lie peacefully and darkly between Hawaii and Mexico. Polymetallic nodules filled with cobalt, nickel, and manganese—the exact metals that battery manufacturers have been eyeing for years—are scattered throughout the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, or CCZ as researchers like to refer to it. The tuna also seem to be moving in that direction more and more. According to a study published in npj Ocean Sustainability, commercially important tuna species like skipjack, yellowfin, and bigeye are being driven eastward…

The math of the deep ocean has an almost cruel quality. The entire process, which may take a few hours, involves a mining vessel dragging equipment across the seafloor to remove nodules that took millions of years to form. The recuperation? These days, scientists think it might take a thousand or several thousand years. It’s not a typo. That isn’t a dramatic exaggeration. In fact, that is what the research indicates. More than 5,400 invertebrate fossils extracted from a sediment core off the coast of Santa Barbara were examined in a seminal study headed by UC Davis scientist Sarah Moffitt,…

Jasmine Monroe, a young Inupiaq and Yupik woman living in the village of Elim on Alaska’s Bering Strait, learned via a government website that industrial seabed mining leases were being considered for the ocean that provides beluga, walrus, seals, and whales to her community. A 30-day public comment period was launched by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. No one made a prior call. No one came to visit. The clock began to run when the comment period opened. “It just feels like the system is set up for failure for us,” she replied. It’s difficult to disagree. Under the…

A change in the air used to indicate something trustworthy during a specific late afternoon hour along Shanghai’s waterfront, London’s Thames embankment, or lower Manhattan’s Hudson. Cooler maritime air was drawn inland like a slow exhale by the pressure differential created by the land absorbing heat all day while the ocean did not. It wasn’t overly dramatic. It was merely wind. However, it was crucial for coastal cities because it provided a daily respite, a natural air purification, and a few degrees of relief from the oppressive urban heat. The wind is getting weaker. It is already measurably declining in…

Before most people were awake, it began to rain. Early on Sunday morning, Kansas City’s humidity was already below 89%, and precipitation was falling in “periodically heavy” bursts, according to forecasters. While this description sounds measured, it doesn’t fully convey what it’s like to walk outside near the Country Club Plaza and feel the air pressing back against you like a warm, wet wall. 48 km/h wind gusts were coming from the east. At 16°C, the RealFeel temperature was nearly three degrees lower than the real reading. In other words, the city was getting soaked. It’s not just a bad…

On mornings like this one, a certain stillness descends upon the Big Sioux River corridor; the air is cloudy, dense with humidity approaching 93%, and seems to have been taken from somewhere much wetter. Right now, if you were standing anywhere close to downtown Sioux Falls, you would notice that the sky is low and gray, that the wind is coming from the southeast, and that the day seems to be building toward something. Yes, it is. By noon, thunderstorms and showers are predicted, and they won’t be mild. Before tonight ends, AccuWeather is warning that hail and damaging winds…

In Corpus Christi, there is a specific type of morning when the sky appears serene enough to deceive you. Yes, it’s cloudy, but the gentle gray light that hangs over Corpus Christi Bay gives you the impression that the day might be easy. It won’t. The Gulf of Mexico effectively transforms the entire city into a pressure cooker with a view by early afternoon, when the temperature rises above 31°C and the humidity approaches 87%. That isn’t precisely a complaint. It’s simply what it means to live here. If you haven’t lived along the Texas Gulf Coast, you may not…

Sam goes to parkrun in Hampshire’s Alice Holt Forest every Saturday morning. He characterizes his weeks as “hectic”—full of cacophony, sensory overload, and the unique weariness that comes with being neurodivergent in a world that hardly ever slows down. However, something changes beneath the trees. The sound of leaves, the cool air, and the physical rhythm of walking through a living environment. “Even ten minutes in this forest makes the week better,” he said. It may seem insignificant, but it is central to the message that WWF’s Prescription for Nature campaign seeks to convey to the rest of the nation.…

A local villager in Chaiyaphum Province, northeastern Thailand, noticed something strange near the edge of a shared pond sometime in 2016 during the dry season. Every dry season in that region of the country causes the water level to drop, and what appeared to be unusually large, oddly shaped rocks protruded from the exposed earth. They weren’t rocks. They were the remains of the biggest dinosaur ever discovered in Southeast Asia. The animal had been peacefully resting there for between 100 and 120 million years. The animal is now known as Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis. Although it’s a mouthful, the reasoning behind…